O pós-Bin Laden

Aislin, «The Montreal Gazette»

Marc Lynch escreve sobre o impacto que a morte de Osama Bin Laden tem no mundo árabe e no futuro da al-Qaeda:

[…] The fact is, al-Qaeda had already been effectively marginalized within the mainstream of the Arab world long before bin Laden died. His death removes the only al-Qaeda figure still able to speak effectively to that Arab mainstream, and marks the end of an era of Arab politics which had already largely faded away. Al-Qaeda’s marginalization in Arab politics has been developing for a long time, and will only be further advanced by bin Laden’s death. […]

The decline in al-Qaeda’s fortunes was also driven by trends inside of Arab politics. Zarqawi’s brutality in Iraq and the wave of terrorist attacks inside Arab and Muslim countries drove a serious backlash. Arab governments began to take al-Qaeda more seriously, with the Saudis and Jordanians and many others launching major campaigns at home and across the region after suffering terrorist attacks at home. […] In short, while it was able to appeal to and recruit from the small, extreme sub-cultures which developed around jihadist ideology, al-Qaeda has long since lost its attractiveness to mainstream Arabs. […]

This does not mean, however, that al-Qaeda is forever irrelevant, as some would hope. […] Indeed, if the revolutions fail, economies don’t improve, and elections produce unattractive political leadership, it is easy enough to imagine frustrated youth a few years from now again finding al-Qaeda’s message attractive.

Bin Laden’s death marks a symbolic point of closure to an historical period which had already faded from view. Al-Qaeda as an organization and ideology will likely adapt and survive, the threat will mutate, and Islamist politics will evolve. It offers another opportunity for the United States to move on from the problems of the past and to establish the new relationship with the people of the Arab world which it so desperately needs. It doesn’t change everything, but it does matter. Beyond that, we will just have to wait and see.

Issandr El Amrani, no The Arabist, tem uma opinião semelhante à de Marc Lynch quanto à perda de relevância da al-Qaeda no mundo árabe.

A Foreign Policy apresenta uma série de testemunhos sobre o mundo pós-Bin Laden. Ezra Klein apresenta a conta do que “custou” Osama Bin Laden; sem as suas acções as guerras do Iraque e Afeganistão não teriam ocorrido.